From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Sun Oct 07 2007 - 08:33:58 EDT
> Marx's idea of the levelling-out of profit rates by competition,resulting > in a general rate of profit, assumed that capital can and will enter and > exit branches of production freely, according to relative capital > returns. > This assumes something like perfect market competition, insofar as this > means there are no obstacles to the free movement of capital. Hi Jurriaan: Well, yes, there is something "like" perfect competition - especially at the level of abstraction where there is profit rate equalization. But, the point I was making is that the assumption of something "like" perfect competition is different from assuming perfect competition. And, at more concrete levels of abstraction the explanation of the process of competition becomes more and more removed from the assumptions underlying perfect competition. If, for instance, Marxists used a model of perfect competition to consider any _actual_ branch of production in the world capitalist economy then they would be incapable of describing the dynamics of what happens in those morkets. In solidarity, Jerry
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